“Where there is life there is death, and where there is death there is life”.

You have probably guessed that for me everything has a counter balance. Last nightI had a difficult night. Another of our girlies has taken a turn for the worse, and Wiglet, a hunter born and bred, knows it, she smells weakness. Don’t let this butter wouldn’t melt look fool you, she knew that chicken is ill and is weak and so she was driven into a frenzy trying to get in to their enclosure to kill it.

As dusk drew in I called her and gave her the command, and she ignored me, no surprises there! So I went over to get her and shushed her into the house; but as I did so I noticed her rubbing her face. On initial investigation all I could see was blood, and what looked like a split from her mouth to her nose. I panicked and ran round a kitchen looking for something to wash her face, then I got a grip and bathed her face with clean kitchen roll and could see that there was no split, but she could not close her mouth and her teeth appeared to be out of alignment. I checked all her teeth and her tongue and could see nothing and I thought ‘Oh my God she has broken her jaw. At this point she could close her mouth because I had manipulated her jaw but she was still rubbing her face and whining, and she kept going to the water bowl to drink and then walking away. It was clear she could not lap up the water.

I grabbed a syringe and squirted water into her mouth, but most came back out, whilst I frantically searched broken or dislocated jaws in dogs; simultaneously videoing her and sending it to my friend. That was it we were both searching the internet then for anything we could find whilst she ate a chew, the cat food, and chicken and rice! But still she could not drink.

The plan was to take her to the vet first thing, and I took the syringe to bed with me and her and Harley pup, in the hope that I could get some water down her throat. It was pitiful to see when she walked up to the water bowl and stuck her paw in, and walked away.

So I searched a different search and asked ‘why won’t my dog drink?’ Up came various reasons, one of which was that dogs have very deep roofs on their mouths and things can get stuck, thereby preventing the tongue from working as it should and making it impossible to drink. That was it, she sat so quietly whilst I ran my finger along the roof of her mouth and found this embedded in the roof of her mouth width ways right at the edge of her throat.

I promised her I would make it right and I did, I pulled that bastard right out, and Wiglet promptly drank half a bowl of water. We went the the vet today for safekeeping, and her mouth has already healed and the vet confirmed she is one tough little bugger.

So as I sit here this evening, in a slight breeze, and warm evening sunshine, and glass of wine in hand I count my blessings, for all that surrounds me and with the thought that if I had left it through the night she could have choked to death, thank God I listened to that voice in my head, that said ‘Check again.’

And I count my blessings for this

Sadly we think we will have to Re-home the chickens we have, it is driving our princess too mad, I don’t think the sick chicken will make it meaning there will be only two girlies and Claude, but we have to know that they will not go in the pot, we could not just send them away to be killed. I do think our chicken keeping days are numbered.

Where there is good there is bad and where there is bad there is good…